Rose Marie Berger, Jean Stokan, and Scott Wright join Pax Christi USA director Johnny Zokovich to discuss “The Power of Nonviolence – Action and Resistance.”
Rose Marie Berger is senior editor of Sojourners magazine and a co-editor of Advancing Nonviolence and Just Peace; Jean Stokan is a member of the Institute Justice Team for the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas and former Pax Christi USA Policy Director; and Scott Wright is director of the Columban Center for Outreach and Advocacy.
This 1:17 hour video is a great primer on active nonviolence today–and includes the 11-minute Pax Christi video on nonviolence that played at the Vatican in December 2020.
You are invited to “The Power of Nonviolence – Action and Resistance” webinar on Wednesday, 14 April 2021, from 3:00-4:00 p.m. (EST). This Zoom event is part four of Pax Christi USA’s study circles on the book Advancing Nonviolence and Just Peace in the Church and the World. Register here or watch the watch the livestream on Pax Christi USA’s YouTube page.
In preparation for this session, read Advancing Nonviolence Part III: The Practice and Power of Nonviolence. Panelists will include Rose Marie Berger, senior editor of Sojourners magazine and one of the co-editors of Advancing Nonviolence; Jean Stokan, a member of the Institute Justice Team for the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas; and Scott Wright, director of the Columban Center for Outreach and Advocacy. The panel discussion with Rose, Jean, and Scott will be followed by breakout sessions for small group discussion.
If you purchase Advancing Nonviolence here, you can use PCM15 to receive a 15% discount.
Ched Myers offers an 18-minute video on what it means to be an “advocate” by looking at Luke 7:36-8:3. The work of advocacy, he says, is “calling people in, both allies and adversaries, to the work of justice for all.”
Or as activists today say, “You don’t need to be a voice for the voiceless–just pass the mic!”
Promoting Civil Resistance as Part of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative – ICNC webinar
Thanks to Steve Chase at the International Center for Nonviolent Conflict for hosting an excellent 1-hour resource-rich webinar on “Promoting Civil Resistance as Part of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative.” Key presenters include Marie Dennis from Pax Christi International’s Catholic Nonviolence Initiative, Eli S. McCarthy from Georgetown University’s Peace and Justice studies program, and Sharon Erickson Nepstad, a sociologist of Catholic social movements at the University of New Mexico.
In this webinar, we hear from a scholar and two members of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative as they described CNI’s efforts to deepen the Catholic Church’s understanding of and commitment to “active nonviolence” with a particular focus on civil resistance as a key tool in promoting social justice. Marie Dennis introduces the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative and its engagement through two major conferences with the Vatican. Sharon Nepstad gives more context on the historical role of Catholics in civil resistance movements. Eli McCarthy shares what the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative is doing now to increase the understandings and skills of nonviolent resistance among Catholics.
For those interested in teaching about Pax Christi International’s Catholic Nonviolence Initiative in churches, schools, or community gatherings, this is a compact, 1-hour webinar to start the conversation.
Gail Bradbrook, UK scientist and co-founder of Rising Up/Extinction Rebellion, gives a clear-eyed update on where we are in the process of climate collapse and what is required of people of good faith now.
This 57-minute video covers two main things: The ecological crisis – the latest science on what risks there are and our current trajectory which includes the possibility of abrupt (ie near-term dramatic climate change) and human extinction. And second, understanding our emotional response and about getting to an appropriate responses. Her goal is to tell the truth and ask us all to act accordingly and consistently with the information, including our understanding of what actually enables change to happen in the world.
Bradbrook concludes with organizing strategy for strategic nonviolent social disruption to apply pressure on governments and institutions for substantive change.
I wonder if this tactic meets the scale of the disaster? Gandhi strategist Pietro Ameglio in Mexico says we must build a “permanent firmness” or “grounded defense” in nonviolent obstructive or constructive actions that “are implemented in proportion with the level of violence and impunity we were up against.” This is what leads to the next phase in the history of social movements in nonviolent civil resistance: non-cooperation and civil disobedience. When there is such a high level of violence, impunity, and state complicity, if other scales of greater moral and material radicalization are not activated, the pressure of mass mobilizations and public dialogue with authorities are not sufficient, because they allow the government margins for dissembling.”
Bradbrook mentions Jem Bendell’s work on “Deep Adaptation.” Bendell writes: I hope the deep adaptation agenda of resilience, relinquishment and restoration can be a useful framework for community dialogue in the face of climate change. Resilience asks us “how do we keep what we really want to keep?” Relinquishment asks us “what do we need to let go of in order to not make matters worse?” Restoration asks us “what can we bring back to help us with the coming difficulties and tragedies?”
The key question I’m wrestling with now: What does Deep Adaptation/metanoia look like in our Discipleship communities?
Here’s the 8-minute video that Starbucks’ employees watched this week. Watch it. Talk to the Starbucks staff about it the next time you head to the Big Green.
From Starbucks: This short film by Stanley Nelson explores the impact of bias within public accommodations as well as the possibilities for a better future. On May 29, we closed 8,000 Starbucks stores in the United States for four hours—so 175,000 Starbucks partners could come together for a conversation and learning session on racial bias. This was a foundational step in renewing Starbucks as a place where ALL people feel welcome. Starbucks partners shared life experiences, heard from others, listened to experts on bias and racial anxiety, reflecting on the realities of bias in our society and talking about how all of us can work together to create public spaces where everyone feels like they belong.
Seven Catholic leaders trespassed onto the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Georgia on Wednesday. This is the first major direct anti-nuclear action taken by U.S. Catholics since Pope Francis announced in November that Catholics should condemn not only the use of a nuclear weapon but their possession.
“The threat of their use as well as their very possession is to be firmly condemned,” the pope told participants at a conference on nuclear disarmament hosted by the Vatican in collaboration with the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons passed by the United Nations in July 2017.
The seven members of the Kings Bay Plowshares, a nonviolent movement committed to “beating swords into plowshares” (Isaiah 2:4), included Elizabeth McAlister, a revered leader in the American Catholic peace movement; Fr. Stephen Kelley, a Jesuit priest; Martha Hennessy, granddaughter of Dorothy Day who was founder of the Catholic Worker movement and currently considered for sainthood; with Clare Grady, Patrick O’Neill, Carmen Trotta, and Mark Colville.
Carmen Trotta and Elizabeth McAlister on Kings Bay submarine base, 4 April 2018
Blood was spilled on the weapons facility crest to call attention to the purpose of the facility, which is mass destruction.
In a video statement made before crossing on to the naval base, Hennessy said: “We plead to our Church to withdraw its complicity in violence and war. We cannot simultaneously pray and hope for peace while we bless weapons and condone war making. Pope Francis says abolition of weapons of mass destruction is the only way to save God’s creation from destruction.
Clarifying the teachings of our Church, Pope Francis said, “The threat of their use as well as their very possession is to be firmly condemned … weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons, create nothing but a false sense of security. They cannot constitute the basis for peaceful coexistence between members of the human family, which must rather be inspired by an ethics of solidarity.”
Currently, all seven are held in Camden County jail in Woodbine, Georgia. They have been denied bond. At a support vigil held on Saturday, 7 April, at 10a (EST), the supporters read sections from the book of Acts until the sheriff’s department moved the vigilers away from the entrance gate to the base.
The Kings Bay submarine Base is the U.S. Atlantic Fleet’s home port for U.S. Navy Fleet ballistic missile nuclear submarines armed with Trident missile nuclear weapons.–Rose Marie Berger
Fifty years ago, Martin King was assassinated. As theologian Jim Douglass shows, the face-covering of the Unspeakable was lifted and we saw the true enemy of the great democratic experiment. Nina Simone sings into the moment as she wrestles with “Always living with the threat of death ahead / Folks you’d better stop and think / Everybody knows we’re on the brink / What will happen, now that the King of love is dead?”
For Christians and Americans, this is our Good Friday moment. And with every killing of Michael Brown, Sarah Bland, Trayvon Martin, and Stephon Clark … with every killing of Sandy Hook children Charlotte Bacon (age 6), Daniel Barden (age 7) and 24 others … with every killing of Yilmary Rodríguez Solivan, Edward Sotomayor Jr., and 48 others at the Pulse nightclub … with every high school leader at Marjory Stoneman Douglas in Parkland … with all known and unknown … we reveal that we are still standing – uncertain – at the foot of the cross staring at our Crucified Christ. Which side are you on? Which side am I on? –Rose Marie Berger
“A life spent entirely in public, in the presence of others, becomes shallow.”–Hannah Arendt
Roger Berkowitz (Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College) and Uday Mehta (professor of political science at CUNY) discuss “private” and “public” life in the context of Hannah Arendt’s writing and Mohandas Gandhi’s writing. They discuss the “virtue of reticence” and the importance of public-private boundaries in order to allow for public judgement and standards as well as for the development of individual or communal “spiritual depth.”
Length: 1 hour (first 25 minutes are Berkowitz’s and Mehta’s presentation)
My notes:
When the right to security becomes a transcendent right, rather than one right among many that need to be balanced, then other rights become subservient to it. But for Christians, security is never a transcendent value. Our “security” comes from God.
Uday Mehta: For Gandhi, privacy mattered to him but not as a “right” provided to you by the state or anyone else. Gandhi does not think his bedroom life is “private” but there are somethings that are so important that they are only between the individual and God and this is private. But the state cannot infringe on this.
Arendt’s things that should be private:
1. Goodness can’t exist in the public sphere. If people know about your goodness then it dies. Friendship can be public, but love should always be private.
2. Birth and Death cannot exist in the public sphere. When you become of age as a public citizen, then the public should not ask about who you were beforehand.
3. Opinion/personal conversations should be kept private.
Uday Mehta: Gandhi’s perspective was that one should say nothing in private that one would not say in public. Because of this he never develops some of the pernicious aspects of “vanguardism.” Gandhi’s commitment to openness did not lead him to violate confidences.
Arendt: If privacy matters, then the only reliable safeguard for privacy is the right to private property, which might not be defensible on economic grounds, but is on privacy grounds.
If you try to balance privacy and security, privacy will always loses, because people will always choose security, convenience, and transparency. People don’t think that invasion of privacy takes away their dignity or autonomy and so they freely give privacy up.
Gandhi wanted to have a conversation between the Indian civilization and Western civilization (and he thought that Indian civilization was superior), but he did not want it to be a nationalist political struggle for sovereign rights.
Currently, all seven are held in Camden County jail in Woodbine, Georgia. They have been denied bond. At a support vigil held on Saturday, 7 April, at 10a (EST), the supporters read sections from the book of Acts until the sheriff’s department moved the vigilers away from the entrance gate to the base.